As I promised last year, I kept careful records of every book I read in 2009. In addition to recording the titles and authors, I’ve noted the length of each book and when I read it. Below are some statistics I’ve calculated from this data.
Reading Statistics
- Total pages read: 18031
- Avg. pages per month: 1502.58
- Avg. pages per week: 346.75
- Avg. pages per day: 49.40
- Longest book: A Pattern Language, 1166 pages
- Shortest book: Brunelleschi’s Dome, 165 pages
- Longest time to read a book: A Pattern Language, 48 days
- Shortest time to read a book: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, 1 days
In addition to the average number of pages, I also computed the distribution of the number of pages read each month. For this I assume that I read at a constant (i.e. the same number of pages per day). This is clearly not true, but it still shows the basic trends.
Finally, I’ve plotted a histogram of the lengths of the books I read. As one would expect, the largest buckets are between 200 and 400 pages.
Here is the complete list of books I read in 2009. The rows highlighted in yellow are books I reread this year, and those highlighted in green are books I listened to in audiobook form. In the later case I used Amazon for the number of pages. Of course, the number of pages is approximate, and I make no claims to consistency about things like handling front and end matter or different editions.
| # | Title | Author | Pages | Start Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Book of Air and Shadows | Michael Gruber | 496 | 01/04 | 01/07 |
| 2* | Cryptonomicon | Neal Stephenson | 918 | 01/08 | 02/15 |
| 3 | Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies | June Casagrande | 199 | 01/13 | 01/23 |
| 4 | Freakonomics | Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner | 336 | 02/13 | 02/15 |
| 5 | Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature | Douglas Farr | 300 | 02/17 | 03/07 |
| 6* | The Diamond Age | Neal Stephenson | 455 | 03/07 | 03/22 |
| 7 | Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life | Neil Strauss | 418 | 03/29 | 04/03 |
| 8 | The Big U | Neal Stephenson | 308 | 04/09 | 04/25 |
| 9* | Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions | Dan Ariely | 304 | 04/18 | 04/20 |
| 10* | A Pattern Language | Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein, Max Jacobson, Ingrid Fiksdahl-King, Shlomo Angel | 1166 | 04/27 | 06/13 |
| 11 | Zodiac | Neal Stephenson | 316 | 05/12 | 05/19 |
| 12 | Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way to be Smart | Ian Ayres | 320 | 05/14 | 05/19 |
| 13* | Gig: Americans Talk about their Jobs | John Bowe, Marisa Bowe, Sabin Streeter, eds. | 670 | 05/19 | 05/24 |
| 14 | Excession | Iain M. Banks | 451 | 05/24 | 06/04 |
| 15 | Food Matters | Mark Bittman | 298 | 06/05 | 06/06 |
| 16 | Home | Witold Rybczynski | 232 | 06/07 | 06/14 |
| 17 | Adventures in Architecture | Dan Cruickshank | 283 | 06/14 | 06/25 |
| 18 | The City in Mind | James Howard Kunstler | 252 | 06/15 | 06/25 |
| 19* | Cyteen | C.J. Cherryh | 696 | 06/27 | 07/10 |
| 20 | The Great Good Place | Ray Oldenburg | 368 | 07/11 | 07/18 |
| 21 | In Praise of Slowness | Carl Honore | 336 | 07/19 | 07/21 |
| 22* | The Bldg Blog Book | Geoff Manaugh | 272 | 07/27 | 08/01 |
| 23 | Three Novels of Ancient Egypt | Naguib Mahfouz | 648 | 08/02 | 08/10 |
| 24 | What I Talk About When I Talk About Running | Haruki Murakami | 192 | 08/15 | 08/15 |
| 25 | The Angel’s Game | Carlos Ruiz Zafón | 544 | 08/16 | 08/20 |
| 26 | Against a Dark Background | Iain M. Banks | 613 | 08/22 | 09/01 |
| 27 | American Houses | Gerald L. Foster | 416 | 09/04 | 09/13 |
| 28 | Create Your Own Economy | Tyler Cowen | 272 | 09/11 | 09/13 |
| 29* | The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo | Stieg Larsson | 590 | 09/16 | 09/26 |
| 30 | The Endless City | Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic, eds. | 481 | 09/26 | 11/08 |
| 31 | Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer | Novella Carpenter | 288 | 09/28 | 10/09 |
| 32 | The Best American Travel Writing 2009 | Simon Winchester, ed. | 384 | 10/03 | 10/18 |
| 33 | The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-to-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich | Timothy Ferriss | 320 | 10/09 | 10/12 |
| 34* | The Geography of Bliss | Eric Weiner | 335 | 10/20 | 10/24 |
| 35* | Regenesis | C.J. Cherryh | 585 | 11/08 | 11/16 |
| 36* | Getting Stoned with Savages | J. Maarten Troost | 256 | 11/09 | 11/13 |
| 37 | The Sex Lives of Cannibals | J. Maarten Troost | 288 | 11/13 | 11/16 |
| 38 | Brunelleschi’s Dome | Ross King | 165 | 11/17 | 11/26 |
| 39* | Green Metropolis | David Owen | 368 | 11/23 | 12/07 |
| 40 | The Crystal World | J.G. Ballard | 210 | 12/01 | 12/12 |
| 41 | The Girl who Played with Fire | Stieg Larsson | 503 | 12/14 | 12/18 |
| 42 | The Magicians | Lev Grossman | 402 | 12/19 | 12/21 |
| 43 | The Lost Symbol | Dan Brown | 528 | 12/22 | 12/29 |
| 44 | Intown Living: A different American Dream | Ann Breen, Dick Rigby | 249 | 12/21 | 12/26 |
Update: I’ve added stars to those books that I particularly like.